A Family Reunited by Jennifer Johnson

Author:Jennifer Johnson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Christian, Fiction
ISBN: 9781460320617
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-10-01T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

After tucking the girls into bed for the night, Pamela marched the few yards back to her parents’ house. Ben had no right to act that way in front of her children. She opened the back door and slammed it behind her. Spying her overgrown little brother sitting at the kitchen table eating another of the apple crisps she’d made, she pointed her finger at him. “How dare you?”

Ben swallowed the bite in his mouth, then lifted his hands. “How dare I what? Stand up for you and the girls?” He pointed toward the front door. “That man has no right to be anywhere near you all.”

Heat washed over her. She was a grown woman, responsible for her life and her two children. “That is not for you to decide.”

He pushed away from the table and stood, towering over her. “Don’t you remember?” He tapped his fingertips against his temple. “Have you forgotten? The man never showed up to help Dad, Kirk and me on the farm when he said he would. Why? Because he was drunk or hungover.”

“What’s going on in here?” Their mother wrapped a robe around her and tightened the belt. Pins held her hair away from her cream-covered face.

Ben continued. “Or maybe you forgot that he left while you were pregnant, and you got so sick with worry and sadness that you went into labor early with Emmy. Not once, but several times. You’d cry and beg God to keep her safe while we chased after Emma and waited on you hand and foot.”

Pamela crossed her arms in front of her chest. “I didn’t know it bothered you so much to help me.”

He smacked his hand against the table. “Of course I didn’t mind. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. But would he?”

“Now, wait a minute, Ben....”

Their mother walked toward her brother. Her lips moved as she spoke to him, but the words jumbled together as Ben’s question weeded its way through every fiber of her being.

The pain she’d suffered when Jack had left punched her in the gut. Yes, she’d told him to leave that night, but she never dreamed he would walk away for good. He hadn’t fought to stay. For months, years even, she’d worried about him, feared for his very life. But she’d heard nothing. No phone calls. No cards or letters. No visits. Nothing until he’d started calling and hanging up two years ago.

“He wasn’t here for any of it.” Ben now addressed their mother. “Not when Emma potty trained or Emmy started walking. Not to teach them their alphabet or teach them to ride a bike. Not when they ran a fever or fought off a stomach bug. He. Was. Never. Here.”

Pamela’s heart squeezed. Ben’s words were true. All of them. He’d abandoned her for all the girls’ milestones to this point. He’d been attentive and reliable the past couple months, but could that really make up for the years he’d been gone? She’d never be able to really trust him.

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